Multireligious Society: Accommodating the New Religious Diversity in Post-Secular Settings

Madrid, Spain – April 11th-12th, 2013

Convenors: Francisco Colom GonzÃ¡lez (CSIC, Spain)
Gianni D’Amato (University of NeuchÃ¢tel, Switzerland)The aim of this Section of the RECODE Research Networking Program is to explore the changing relationship between the religious and political spheres in democratic societies. Whereas modernisation has been traditionally conceived as an irrevocable substitution of traditional religious values by secular principles, the fact is that we are facing a profound change in the functional parameters of religion. For centuries, religion was the main instrument of socialization in traditional agrarian societies. Their symbolic universe was shaped by religious references, as were their collective allegiances and their perception of social order and political legitimacy. In modern societies it is the state which exercises, even if in a receding way, this type of cultural hegemony. Religion has historically unbound itself from the normative function of legitimating state authority, but the emergence of new forms of religious diversity continues to demand specific policies from the state. Religion thus has lost its role as a primordial social reference, but it has not given way to completely secularized forms of subjectification. It still counts as a relevant social force that pervades the public, private and personal realms, and it often puts pressure on the role of the state as a neutral public actor. This is what we have defined here as post-secular settings.

In this workshop we will address the social practices, public policies and normative issues involved in the accommodation of the new emerging forms of religious diversity. Special attention will be paid to the management of multiconfessional social spaces. In the first panel we will deal with the accommodation of religion in contemporary urban settings, with the configuration of religious itineraries related to pilgrimage or tourism and with the adaptation of medical, penitentiary and funerary practices to multi-religious conditions. In the second panel we will look at the theoretical and practical implications of the claims for legal autonomy made by certain religious groups. In the last panel we will turn to the dilemmas stemming from the participation of organized religious groups in processes of conflict resolution and in the making of public policy.